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Television

Recently in The Forward, Jay Michaelson compared four characters from “Glee” to the “Four Children” from the Passover seder tradition. What I loved about the piece was Michaelson’s point that for young Jews, Jewish identity is one variable in a multi-variable identity that youth will embrace, when and if they find it meaningful. What bothered me about the piece was the language Michaelson used describing Rachel Berry, the analogous “Wise Child,” as an “irritating control freak” and “intolerable.” It was particularly difficult to read this because, well, I used to be Rachel Berry.

I can’t cook much beyond macaroni and cheese (I’m learning!), but I love a good cooking show. In fact, on nights that aren’t Wednesdays, it’s likely I’ll mention at least once that I wish “Top Chef” were on every evening; I love all iterations of it, including “Just Desserts,” “All-Stars,” and even the subpar “Masters.”

I am such a Gleek. So naturally I was fascinated by the uproar caused by the risque, but let’s just face it crazy-hot, GQ photo shoot that Leah blogged about here.

Gail Dolgin, an Academy-Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, passed away on October 7, 2010, in Berkeley, CA, at age of 65. She was an active citizen, a leader in the documentary community, and unabashed about her battle with cancer during the last decade of her life.

Born Celine Zeigman in Paris in January 1911, the woman whom American audiences knew as the stand-up comedian Jean Carroll came to the United States with her family as a baby. She grew up in the Bronx and began her career in her early teens dancing in an amateur show. A talent agent spotted her, and soon she was performing on the vaudeville circuit.

Acclaimed journalist Rebecca Lipkin's colleagues and friends have penned glowing tributes about her storied career, consummate professionalism, and supreme news savvy. But it's obvious that she's equally revered for her warmth, inherent goodness, and sense of fun and adventure. Although I've seen splashes of Rebecca's work over the years and know that the accolades heaped upon this extraordinary woman are well deserved, that's not how I know her.

Do I admire her because she's been described as "... evasive about her height, acknowledging only that she was under 5 feet and under 100 pounds?" Well, all the more points to Estelle Getty for being an itsy-bitsy powerhouse, but mostly I admire her for being a genuinely funny, talented woman, who never gave up on her greatest ambitions. In an industry where youth and beauty are often valued far above maturity and wit, Estelle turned the tables. She found success in her later years, cracked wise about it the whole time, and taught young women like myself a few things along the way.

When my mother died, my eldest brother Paul said that she was the only woman he'd ever known who had an equal passion for social justice and fashion. It was true: Pauline Spiegel Cowan profoundly cared about making the world a better place, and she adored fine clothes and beautiful furniture. Although the fire in which she and my father perished destroyed their apartment and her material possessions, her legacy of political activism remains relevant and important more than a quarter century later.

Kitty Carlisle Hart, 96, passed away one week after the official end of Passover. The concurrence reminded me of how few of her fans knew she was Jewish—and how lucky I was to have had the chance to hear her talk about that quiet part of her life.

We met three years ago when she granted me an interview for my book, Stars of David, which asked Jewish celebrities how much being Jewish mattered to them, and why.